This upcoming football season, the mighty Jaguars of East Gadsden will take the field under new leadership as first-year head coach Tracy Laing takes over for the recently departed Corey Fuller, who has moved on to become a part of the Florida A&M coaching staff.

Kaitlyn Sirmons was one of 24 students chosen to be honored at the 19th Annual FHSAA Academic All-State Banquet on June 10 in Gainesville. Sirmons is a 2013 graduate of Robert F. Munroe Day School. She applied for the award at the urging of her school’s athletic director, Susie Morris.

“I’ve been on the selection committee before, and I thought she had a shot on being selected,” Morris said.

On May 8 the Robert F. Munroe Day School student body watched senior four-sport athlete Kaitlyn Sirmons sign a commitment form to play softball at Covenant College in the fall of 2013. Covenant College was founded in 1955 in Lookout Mountain, Ga., near Chattanooga, Tenn. It is an academically rigorous liberal arts institution affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).

The Munroe Lady Cats softball team was not the better team all season.

They knew it. Their coaches knew it. Everyone at the Aucilla softball field knew it. Munroe had been defeated by Aucilla Christian in all three meetings this season by a combined score of 30-2 with two games called for the mercy-rule.

The departure of East Gadsden High School head football coach Corey Fuller to join the coaching staff at Florida A&M University last month left a void that was filled April 24 by Fuller’s assistant Trace Laing. He has worked at East Gadsden as head strength coach and defensive line coach since 2009.

In what will be remembered as a season of growing pains, the Bobcats of Robert F. Munroe bowed out in the first game of the District 2-1A tournament with a 7-1 defeat at the hands of John Paul II, thus ending their 2013 campaign.

The Munroe softball team demolished host team First Coast Christian of Jacksonville 23-5 this past Thursday in the quarterfinals of the Region 1-2A softball bracket. Munroe, the runner-up in District 1, faced the District 2 champs on the road.